This is a great essay about writing by George Orwell. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never read it before this week. Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do [...]
Check out this blog article called “10 Company Name Types on TechCrunch: Pros and Cons.” The author of the blog, Chris Johnson, provides an analysis of these types of names: Real words Compounds Phrases Blends Tweaked words Affixed words Made up or obscure origin Puns People’s names (real or fictitious) Initials and Acronyms This article [...]
This is the MP3 version (52,715K) of the CommunityNext founders panel in case you want to listen, as opposed to watch, it. Also, you’ll probably find this presentation by Threadless to be quite interesting. This Chicago-based online retailer solicits t-shirt designs from its community and then sells them. Rumor has it that the company’s sales [...]
At the CommunityNext conference I moderated this panel with the founders of six very successful web properties: Akash Garg of hi5 Sean Suhl of Suicide Girls Max Levchin of Slide James Hong of HotorNot Markus Frind of PlentyofFish Drew Curtis of Fark This is the most amusing panel that I’ve ever moderated, and the speakers [...]
The Kauffman Foundation is launching EntrepreneurshipWeek USA from February 23rd to March 3rd. The theme is “What’s Your Big Idea? Take it On!” There will be educational programs around the country. Stanford is embracing this program in a big way starting with the kickoff event on Saturday. The schedule for the week is packed with [...]
Michael Raynor has a doctorate of business administration from Harvard and works for a big-name consulting firm so I had to overcome several deep-seated prejudices to read his new book The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What To Do About It). He’s from Canada, and I believe that I am [...]
Beginning in the March, 2007 issue, entries from my blog are appearing in Entrepreneur Magazine. The title of my column is “Wise Guy.” Please tell your friends and colleagues who aren’t blog readers that the “best of” my blog now appears in print.
Adrian G. White, a psychologist at the University of Leicester, produced a “world map of happiness.” The study reflects data from UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR. The twenty happiest countries are: Denmark Switzerland Austria Iceland The Bahamas Finland Sweden Bhutan Brunei [...]
George Lakoff is a professor at U.C. Berkeley Linguistics Department. He’s written a book called Don’t Think of an Elephant His message in this interview concerns how Republicans appear to be good “framers” and Democrats are lousy ones. Here are two questions from the interview: Question: How does language influence the terms of political debate? [...]
Here is an interesting juxtaposition. First, I read “The Availability Heuristic in the Classroom: How Soliciting More Criticism Can Boost Your Course Ratings” by Craig R. Fox, UCLA Anderson School and Department of Psychology. In this study, two groups of students filled out an evaluation of an MBA course. One group was asked for two [...]
Bob Sutton and the mavens at Electric Pulp have created the ARSE (Asshole Rating Self Exam) to help people to determine if they are assholes. This is an offshoot from Bob’s book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, which I reviewed at the end of October. I’m sure [...]
Many people have asked me how I made the trip to Québec blog entry, so here’s an explanation. I used three products: iPhoto Comic Life Skitch I don’t think one can use this style of blogging too often, but it is effective and fun for “special occasions.” All three products, by the way, are Macintosh-only [...]
Frederic Lucas-Conwell conducted a study of Silicon Valley technical evangelists called “Technology Evangelists: A Leadership Survey.” Here is the abstract: The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer understanding of the relatively new phenomenon known as the “technology evangelist.” By our exploration, we aim to help readers improve their management functions, and to [...]
Continuing on from Minnesota, I went to Québec for the Garage Canada conference. The Winter Carnival was also going on at the same time. I thought Minnesota was cold, but it was downright balmy compared to Québec. Despite the -40 degree weather, I found many parallels between Québec and my native states of Hawaii and [...]
Here’s a compilation of silly and stupid ways companies are hindering adoption of their products and services. I must admit, some of the companies that I’ve invested in have made these mistakes—in fact, that’s why I know these mistakes are (a) silly; (b) stupid; and (c) hinder adoption. Enforced immediate registration. Requiring a new user [...]
There are very few products that I depend on more than SpinVox. This service translates voicemail to text and then sends a text message to your phone and/or an email to your computer. SpinVox is currently introducing this service to the US. As an introductory offer, the first 250 people can get the service for [...]
I’m on a trip to my new adopted state, Minnesota. (Perhaps I am a Minnesotan trapped in a Hawaiian body instead of Canadian trapped in a Hawaiian body.) The first order of business was playing in the U. S. Pond Hockey Championships put on by Haberman and Associates. It featured approximately 200 teams playing on [...]
Before you dedicate your life to crafting a business plan the length of a book, read these two paragraphs from the 1/9/07 edition of the Wall Street Journal in an article called "Enterprise: Do Start-ups Really Need Formal Business Plans" A study recently released by Babson College analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated [...]
Here’s a collection of podcasts about marketing from Marketing Voices, a weekly podcast that discusses how social media is affecting marketing strategy and practices, by my buddy Jennifer Jones. There’s lots of great information for entrepreneurs and small-business owners in these podcasts. Seth Godin, marketing expert, author. States that small is the new big. People [...]
My source at LinkedIn, Kay Luo, tells me that my profile is in the 99.99th percentile of profiles viewed. She insisted that I should make it good—or at least suck less. So I enlisted her and LinkedIn’s designer, Mike Lin, to do an “extreme makeover” of my profile. This is what was wrong with my [...]